Will Mumbai Indians coach Mahela Jayawardena be happy with his team winning comprehensively by 4 wickets yesterday in his own backyard against Sunrisers Hyderabad? Guess the answer, an obvious yes, but he will want at least one top order batter to convert their thirties and forties to the next level of a minimum of 75 plus and attempt to bat through the innings. Mumbai Indians are climbing, but the challenges ahead will be tricky with their top order batters getting thus far and no further.
Yesterday, Mumbai Indians won a vital toss on a Sluggish Mumbai pitch and had an advantage of enjoying better conditions than their opponents.
Sunrisers Hyderabad is having an issue with Travis Head struggling at the top with Ishan Kishan not contributing. Hence, this scenario has two issues that coach Rahul Dravid is faced with in balancing his playing eleven.
The first issue is that Abisheik Sharma has to limit himself up the order because the early wickets in the power play overs with both Head and Ishan not getting the upfront onslaught into top gear, hence this flaw or failure is additional pressure Enrich Klassan and Aniket Varma in the middle order, but also Pat Cummins free flow in death overs with his bat, combined with him taking extra risk with his running effort to keep strike due to SRH batter weak in the depth.
Diving into yesterday’s game, they lost the vital toss and had to bat on a sluggish pitch.
Abisheik, despite his 40 in 28 deliveries, kept looking over his shoulder because his partner the free flowing “see ball hit ball” type of batter in Travis Head struggled yesterday and even in his previous 4 outings.
Somehow, the free flow of runs from his bat seems to have choked this summer in India.
Abisheik was the first to lose his wicket with the score on 59. In the 8th over, Ishan Kishan leaves the park soon after with SRH in distress on 68 for 2 wickets. Top order batter Nitesh Kumar Reddy, who joined Travis Head at the wickets, found things out of place with the fall of the Australian hit master walking back with the score on 82 for 3 wickets in 11.3 overs after he faced 29 deliveries for his 27. A par score of 200 at Wankhade against a strong batting unit like Mumbai Indians especially in their own backyard, and the possibility of the dew factor.
At the start of the 16th over, Sunrisers Hyderabad must have targeted 180 as a par score given the sluggish batting conditions.
Thunder Bolt was heard around the Wankhade Stadium as the Mumbai Indians fans split their vocal cords as Trent Boult struck a Bolt sending back Nitesh Reddy for 19 off 18 deliveries and the visitors slumped to 113 for 4 wickets in 16.4 overs with 24 balls remaining if bowled legally for Sunrisers Hyderabad to reach a score of 180 minimum to defend.
Deepak Chahar sadly leaked 24 runs in the 18th over, simply smashed by Enrich Klassan who made 37 in 28 deliveries, and Hardick Pandya conceding 18 runs in the final over.
In other words, Mumbai Indians conceded 43 runs in the last 3 overs. Mumbai Indians needed 163 to win, which never looked a challenging chase.
Will Jack’s took 2 for 14 , Bumrah 1 for 21, however, Pandya 1 for 42, and Deepak Chahar wicket less for 47 were expensive. Trent Boult is ever reliable. 1 for 25 looked the best Mumbai had in the park with the new ball.
Mumbai Indians despite the fact that none of their top order batters made it big, all contributed whilst keeping the run chase under control.
Ryan Rickleton 31, Rohit Sharma 26 with 3 massive sixes, Will Jack’s 36 batting at 3 Suriyakumar Yadav 26 , Thilak Varma an unbeaten 21 and Hardick Pandya made a 9 ball 21.
Hyderabad bowlers, except for Pat Cummins 3 for 26, the rest were under the pump. Eshan Malinga took 2 for 36. Mumbai Indians win by 4 wickets, the winning boundary hit by Thilak Varma.in the first ball of the 18th over.
Mumbai Indians climbed up the ladder to 7th place while Sunrisers Hyderabad are just ahead of Chennai Super Kings in 9th position.